


Freedom Is The Devil's Lie

by LonelyFlagger



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexual Arthur Morgan, Bisexual Female Character, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Follows Main Story, High Honor Arthur Morgan, Loss of Parent(s), Mild Arthur/Charles, Mild Sexual Content, One-Sided Attraction, Original Character Death(s), Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:07:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25368085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonelyFlagger/pseuds/LonelyFlagger
Summary: After being saved by the Van Der Linde gang, Zhang Jing is thrown into the life of an outlaw. Now a skilled gunslinger, she must face losses in her found family, the end of the Wild West, and the slow death of the Van Der Lindes.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Charles Smith, Javier Escuella/Original Female Character(s), Jenny Kirk/Original Female Character(s), Molly O'Shea/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Freedom Is The Devil's Lie

Baba had been so excited. A rich family in Rhodes had ordered a shipment of “authentic Oriental China” from his humble shop in Saint Denis. They had even invited the merchant and his family for a business dinner to set up a recurring contract.

“See, what did I say, ah?” Baba said with a smile that stretched across his entire face. “You work hard enough and someone will notice. This golden mountain is real.”

Mama folded her arms over her chest. “Darling, I’m not sure. The roads aren’t safe. Just last week, Mr. Xu was robbed on his way from Van Horn!”

“Ah, you worry too much,” Baba exclaimed. “Xu was coming from the North. We’re going West! But since my beautiful girls are coming with me, Mr. Kuo gave me something as a little extra insurance.”

He patted a worn rifle hidden in the wagon behind him, flashing his wife a mischievous smile to which she sighed in exasperation, relenting. “Zhang Jing! It’s time to go!”

A girl, no more than fifteen, stepped out of the shop in the finest dress Ms. Li from down the street could afford to lend her. “Sorry Baba. I’m ready to go.”

“Ah, look at my beautiful daughter!” Baba cried, while Zhang Jing bit her lip and looked down. “Come, hop in! We’re going to be late at this rate. And make sure you watch the porcelain! We don’t want to deliver any less than the best to the Gray family!”

Cobblestone paths turned to crimson roads as the wagon crossed the swamplands of Lemoyne. A cacophony of croaking frogs, bird calls, and the occasional roar of a nearby alligator created an ambient peace that eased the family’s minds from their stuffy clothes and high hopes.

“Zhang Jing,” Baba called, rousing his daughter from her thoughts. “How is everything back there?”

“All of the porcelain is still okay Baba,” she replied.

“Good,” he said smiling warmly. “It’s nice to get out of the city, isn’t it?”

“Yes Baba.”

“Aiya, we’re not even at the estate yet! Why so formal?” Baba asked incredulously.

Zhang Jing refused to meet his gaze, focused on picking at the lace on her sleeve.

“Zhang Jing,” he said sternly. His daughter looked up, biting her lip with her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

“I know things are hard now, but think of all the good that will come of this deal. We’re about to dine with one of the richest families in the state. You get to wear such pretty clothes. We finally get to leave the city for the night. And if this deal goes well,” he paused, reaching down and grasping Mama’s hand. “I’ll be able to buy one of those beautiful estates on the West side for your mother.”

Baba smiled so wide that it stretched across both corners of his face. That was the kind of man he was; a man who could smile through devastating poverty, a musty swamp that smelled worse than the Saint Denis slums, even the bullet that tore through the trees and straight through his heart.

“I got ‘im!”

Masked men sprang from the trees as her father’s body tumbled from the wagon. Her mother’s scream ripped through the swamp’s deadly calm.

“Baba!” Zhang Jing screamed. One of the men jumped into the wagon and tackled her to the floor.

“Got ya, you little rat,” he spat, pressing her harder into the splintered wagon bed. “I got the one in the wagon!”

“Keep it pinned, we’ll deal with these two first,” yelled another man from the side of the wagon her father fell from.

“The Grays were right,” he sneered. “There’s good hunting here tonight, boys.”

Zhang Jing struggled under her captor’s grip, kicking and screaming wildly.

“Keep still you little shit!” He slammed her head into the wooden floor.

The world blurred. Something warm and wet dripped from her forehead. Muffled voices sprang up all around her. She couldn’t breathe. There was no more strength left in her body.

“Zh- -ng!”

The voices were harsher. Her forehead burned. Something was pressing into her back. Her muscles ached.

“Zhang Jing!”

_Mama?_

With the strength she could muster, she turned her head towards the voice.

_Vvvvmp._

Her mother hung from a tree, scratching at her neck, kicking and clawing for air. The man holding rope breathed heavily, his eyes dilated from sickening pleasure, and tugged her writhing body higher. Zhang Jing could hardly hear their crude jeering over the screaming she barely recognized as her own. Sobs racked her body, as grief washed over her. Then, a single moment of clarity, borne from the burning hatred that raced throughout her body. The man on top of her had slackened his grip to get a better view of the show.

Zhang Jing sprung up, sending her captor tumbling over the wagon’s side. She grasped the varnished handle of Mr. Kuo’s “insurance” and dove off the wagon. By the time the assailants had broken from their twisted reverie, she was already tearing through the marshy forest, fumbling with a weapon she did not know.

_Mama. Baba. I’ll come back for you, I swear!_

Bloodthirsty screams and heavy footsteps spurred her legs to pump even faster. She needed to get away from here. She needed to live.

_Bang!_

Pain tore through her shoulder and Zhang Jing let out a chilling scream. She fell, her momentum hurling her into a gnarled tree trunk.

“We got her!”

The masked men once again appeared from the trees, wicked smiles hidden behind cloth masks. Zhang Jing swung her rifle up, aiming at the cruel man standing proudly before her, her trembling hands betraying her feeble show of strength.

“Murderers!” she screamed. “I-I’ll kill you. I’ll kill all of you!”

The entire crew aimed at her, but the man in front of her waved them off. “Take your best shot.”

_Click._

Zhang Jing pulled the trigger again and again, but to no avail. The group’s ringleader grabbed the rifle from her hands and slammed the butt against her skull.

“Dumb shit doesn’t even know how to turn off the safety,” he yelled, cackling. He pulled out his own pistol, taking aim at the little girl who stared directly up the barrel into his cold eyes, prepared to meet her end with defiance.

_Bang!_

The man behind her would-be executioner toppled over, a bloody crater in the side of his skull.

“What the hell?!” The leader spun around, whipping his pistol around wildly to find the hidden shooter. Adrenaline burst through her veins as Zhang Jing threw herself at the man’s back. They went tumbling, both fighting for supremacy, deaf to masked men falling one after another. After what seemed like an endless struggle, they stopped, her attacker pinning Zhang Jing. He laughed victoriously, turning to grab his knife which had fallen a few inches from them during their struggle. Fueled by the rage of a rabid animal, Zhang Jing lunged upwards grabbing his ear between her teeth. Clenching her jaw and ignoring the man’s screams, she threw her head back, feeling flesh tear.

He threw himself off of her, clutching the bloodied stump that was once his ear, screaming as though he had never known pain. Zhang Jing lunged for the knife, and using all the force she had, knocked him to the ground. Her eyes flashed with bloodthirsty rage as she raised the knife above her head and plunged it deep into his chest again and again and again andagainandagainandagainandagai-

“Miss!”

Zhang Jing let the knife fall once more, lodging permanently in the bloodied corpse below her, before looking up at the two new men standing before her, their hands raised in an attempt to placate her. Her breathing hitched and she scrambled away, falling over herself until her back hit a tree trunk. She curled into herself, willing herself to shrink from existence. The taller man with black hair and a cleft chin approached her cautiously.

“Miss, we mean you no harm. Those men are gone now. It is going to be alright,” he said, his voice laced with unshakable warmth that coerced her into relaxing just slightly. Once next to her, he pulled into a suffocating embrace that she half-heartedly tried to fight, her body melting into the comfort of human kindness.

“You can come with us for now,” he said, pulling away. “If that’s alright with you?”

Zhang Jing blankly stared at the corpses of her parent’s murderers, strewn haphazardly around the swamp, and nodded slowly. The man with kindness in his eyes said nothing, only gently gripping her hand and pulling her up.

“Dutch,” called a new voice, a coarse-looking man rode up, briefly looking at Zhang Jing with pity. “I got rid of the runners.”

“Good work Arthur,” Dutch said as he helped Zhang Jing onto his horse. “Hosea and I will bring the girl back to camp. Will you go back and bury those poor folk near the wagon somewhere proper?”

Arthur nodded, riding back in the direction of her parents.

The man called Hosea looked at her with tight-lipped pity. He pulled out a flask and delicately worked it into her hands. “Poor thing. Make sure you ride slowly Dutch. Don’t want to add being thrown off a horse to her day.”

“Of course Hosea. I am a gentleman after all. Frankly, I’m a little offended you think otherwise,” Dutch said, grinning in amusement.

Zhang Jing couldn’t remember what else the men said. She stared down at her hands which tightly clutched the flask. Her sleeves were torn, the lace either ripped or unrecognizably smeared with blood. One shaky hand snaked its way up to her cheek, wiping some of the muck for inspection. Her fingertips trailed down to her line of sight, covered in blood that Zhang Jing was unsure belonged to herself or the field of corpses that slowly faded in the distance. The shaking once isolated in her hands soon overwhelmed her, forcing a choked sob to erupt from her throat. Sobs racked her entire being, so intense she thought they would consume her. Years later, Zhang Jing would remember the infinite kindness of the mysterious men who rescued her, not for killing her attackers, but for leaving her be with the ugliness of her grief.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The howling winds of the West Grizzlies rocked a weathered caravan as it desperately crawled away from the hotbed of civilization. Wearied by the journey, its occupants nursed bullet wounds and broken egos, some dead or dying from their abundance of foolishness. In one wagon lay a woman stiff with pain, hissing curses under her breath, as a severe woman by the name of Grimshaw tended to her bleeding shoulder.

“Miss Jing, tell me, how is it that a girl your size manages to get shot in the same place twice?” she spat, tightening her patient’s bandages with unnecessary force.

Jing groaned, waving away Grimshaw’s unforgiving hands with the little strength she had. “Been running with these boys too long. Their luck’s starting to rub off on me.”

Grimshaw pursed her lips in a feeble attempt to smother her amusement, determined to maintain her usual air of Spartan discipline. Her hands paused, curling to fists against the fresh bandages. Her usually stiff posture slackened. “You were at the ferry, weren’t you?”

Jing let out a trembling breath, closing her eyes. “Yes, I was.”

Grimshaw looked out the open back of the wagon, down the path in the direction of the young woman who they left far too young beneath a mound of frozen earth. “Did you… see what happened?”

Jing rested her good arm over her eyes, trying to block out the image of Jenny’s glassy eyes staring endlessly up at the sky as crimson life drained from her body. “Law had us pinned on the boat. Jenny got shot and Dutch grabbed some girl. They let us through, but once we were clear, he… uh… he took Jenny’s death real hard.”

Grimshaw’s gaze lingered on the path, before slowly turning back to Jing. “He shot the girl?”

Jing nodded.

She let out a sigh filled with weariness of a woman far too old to be dealing with this kind of heat. “I see. Least it half explains the mess we’re in.”

Silence filled the space between the two women, both feeling the weight of inevitable change that would now be forced upon them. Then, as though whatever strange power controlled their fates had deemed such thoughts unnecessary, the wagon lurched to a halt. Chatter could be heard from further up the path.

“What’s going on?” Jing asked, pushing herself up only for Grimshaw to force her back down.

“Stay down you idiot,” she snarled, unflinching as Jing’s head collided with the wooden wagon bed a bit too violently. Jing would have been relieved to see the old Grimshaw again if her head hadn’t been throbbing with blinding pain. The older woman climbed up to the driver’s seat, exchanging words with Pearson before turning back to Jing.

“Arthur’s found somewhere for us to camp. We’re heading there now.”

By the time they arrived at the abandoned mining town of Colter, Jing’s consciousness was fading. A sea of muffled voices strengthened the growing haze in her mind, but Grimshaw’s distinctive shrillness signaled their arrival to Jing. Someone tried to pull her up, but she waved them off.

“Go help the others,” she said, laying herself back down. “I just need a minute.”

Whoever it was remained still for a moment before retreating. Jing clutched her shoulder, burdened more by blood that was not her own stained across her arm than the bullet wound burning her left side. In the darkness of her solitude, all she could hear were the dying screams of the woman she loved and the gunshot that sent them running to the mountains in search of nature’s frigid refuge.

_“We’ll be free.”_

Jing cringed at the words. Just yesterday, she might have believed such platitudes, ever searching the horizon for the gilded Western plains that promised to hold their salvation. Now, Jing lay in a bed made of broken dreams and dead comrades, thinking of a fairy tale land conjured in the mind of an idealist with a book.

_Did you find freedom in the end?_

“Jing. Hey, Jing.”

Her thoughts were dispelled by the hands of the person shaking her. She smacked them away and pushed herself up, grasping her shoulder as pain flared through her once again. Jing opened her eyes, taking in the blurred visage of the man kneeling beside her.

“Ah, she lives,” Javier said, smiling.

Jing groaned. “I wish I wasn’t. Where are we?”

“Abandoned mining town. The others got set up while you were getting your beauty sleep.”

“Oh, ha ha. Are you here to mock me or help me?”

Javier raised his hands in mock surrender, the teasing smile never leaving his face. He grabbed her outstretched arm and pulled her up, slinging it over his shoulder. The two jumped down from the wagon, staggering slightly in the fresh snow.

“You are okay, right?” he asked, his tone laced with concern.

“Nothing some sleep won’t fix. Won’t be able to go on any more daring suicide missions for a little while though,” she said, sneering.

Javier frowned. “Hey, that’s not fair. You know this job was hard on Dutch.”

“Yeah, well, it was pretty hard on me too,” Jing snapped, keeping her gaze fixed on the ground.

Javier bowed his head. “Sorry. You and Jenny were… close right?”

Jing nodded, her body weighed down by grief. The two walked in tense silence until they reached one of the decrepit old cabins.

“This is you. You need help getting in?” Javier asked, avoiding her gaze.

“No, I’ll be fine from here,” Jing replied stiffly. “Thanks.”

Javier tipped his hat, retreating back down the path. Jing paused at the door, biting her lip before turning around.

“Javier!”

He stopped, waiting for her to reach him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, still clutching her shoulder. “I shouldn’t have pushed that on you. It wasn’t right.”

Javier shook his head. “I get it. I was out of line too. We lost a lot of good people today.”

Jing nodded, eyes downcast.

“I should get back. Get some rest Jing.”

The two parted ways for the last time that night, but for the first time since Jenny’s death, Jing remembered not her glassy eyes or her limp form, but instead the bright smile she fell in love with. And in the frozen wasteland of loss that the Van Der Linde gang found themselves in, Jing felt warm.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading the first chapter of my fic! I had so much fun writing this and I'm pumped to write more! I thought I'd also put a few author notes here just in case you were confused by anything.  
> \- Jing is Chinese (she was born in Saint Denis); her parents are immigrants  
> \- I was always really curious about the Chinese population in RDR2, since they're not used at all  
> \- Jing's name is shortened because of her time in the gang (given how some of the members can be kinda racist, I decided it would be around the idea that they probably wouldn't be able to pronounce her whole name); also, Jing didn't want to be called the same name after what happens with the people who killed her parents, but I'll be writing about that later so stay tuned :)


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